Canespace: November 2010

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After a tough loss on the road to Virginia next up for your Miami Hurricanes is a home game at noon (better get used to it) against the Maryland Terrapins at Sun Life Stadium. The Hurricanes will try to continue their yo-yo like season with a bounce back win over the slowly emerging Terps.

Just in case you aren't sure exactly what a "Terrapin" is here is some background and history for you on how Maryland adopted the cute little turtle as their school mascot:

The Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) was made the State reptile and official mascot of the University of Maryland College Park in 1994 (Chapter 476, Acts of 1994; Code of State Government).

As a mascot (also fondly known as Testudo) the Terrapin, however, has been affiliated with the University of Maryland's athletic program since 1933.

Terrapin are carnivorous predators whose preference for unpolluted saltwater make them indicators of healthy marsh and river systems. In winter, they hibernate underwater in mud. Around late May, diamondback terrapin emerge to mate, nest, and bask in the sun on coastal dunes or narrow sandy beaches. Chesapeake Bay area colonists ate terrapin prepared Native-American fashion, roasted whole in live coals. Abundant and easy to catch, terrapin were so ample that landowners often fed their slaves and indentured servants a staple diet of terrapin meat. Later, in the 19th century, the turtle was appreciated as gourmet food, especially in a stew laced with cream and sherry.

For a turtle soup recipe click here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/foodnation-with-bobby-flay/turtle-soup-recipe/index.html

Maryland steamrolls into the game with a 6-2 record (3-1 ACC) and fresh off a thrashing of Wake Forest. Maryland picked up its fourth straight home win, became bowl eligible and most importantly, remained in a second-place tie in the Atlantic Division race with Saturday's dominating 62-14 victory over the Demon Deacons.

Maryland has won six of their first eight games for the fifth time under Coach Ralph Friedgen (2001, 2002, 2006, 2008). The Terrapins are bowl eligible for the seventh time in Friedgen's 10 seasons. Maryland, 2-6 at this point last year, has posted the best turnaround in the ACC. No other team has improved by more than three games from its 2009 record after eight contests.

Interesting Fact: Maryland has not had a punt blocked in 132 straight games, but over that time span they have blocked 16 of the opposition's, including four on the season (two vs. Wake Forest, 10/30; two vs. Morgan State, 9/11).

Miami meanwhile is limping forward after suffering a 24-19 loss against Virginia to to send their record tumbling to 5-3 (3-2 ACC). The Hurricanes had appeared to be taking turns struggling on offense or defense each week. That is until the Virginia game where Miami decided to go all "fair and balanced" and struggled equally on both sides of the ball against what was perceived as a weaker opponent.

UM running back Damien Berry is currently averaging 86.2 yards per game, which ranks fourth in the ACC. The senior has scored four TDs on the season, in addition to 93 receiving yards. Leonard Hankerson leads the Hurricanes in receiving with 681 yards this season. The senior ranks second in the ACC in both receptions (5.5 pg) and receiving yards per game (85.1 pg) . Hankerson also leads the league with nine TD receptions, including a three-TD game against Clemson (10/2).

Miami linebackers Colin McCarthy and Sean Spence anchor the Miami defense with 128 total tackles between the pair. McCarthy ranks fourth in the ACC with 8.7 tackles per game, while Spence sits right behind him with 8.4. The Hurricanes have the top-ranked passing defense in the ACC, and are ranked seventh in the nation, allowing only 152.5 yards per game.

As all Hurricane fans know Miami suffered a significant loss against the Cavaliers when UM starting QB Jacory Harris was body slammed to the turf and suffered a concussion that is likely to keep him out of this week's contest. If Harris can't go then Miami will turn to true freshman Stephen Morris who played well and led the comeback in the second half of the Virginia game after Harris was knocked silly.

Somehow, in spite of their records and the nay-sayers, the wisdom of the odds-makers has the Hurricanes listed as an 11 point favorite over the Terrapins. Go figure.

Having officially retired the "I GOT THIS" saying after last week's debacle against Virginia I will not be making a score prediction for this week's game. I will only offer this:

GO CANES, BEAT THE TERPS!!!

After all of the well deserved criticism and complaining about your Miami Hurricanes unimaginable loss to lowly Virginia last Saturday the promise of yet another another college football season now appears to be slowly sinking over the horizon like just another South Florida sunset.

The dreams that were once filled with National Championships, ACC titles and the brilliant colors of "orange on one side, green on the other side" now are fading once again to shades of grey, then black.

And yes, while there remains the slim possibility that Miami could wind up in the ACC title game with a little help from their friends, the stinging and humiliating losses to FSU and UVA will not fade from Miami football fan's memories easily.

Sure winning the ACC crown and going to a BCS bowl game would assuage much of the pain and loss experienced during the regular season, a season that was filled with so much hope and now appears to have hit the proverbial wall one more time under head coach Randy Shannon.

When you are young and literrally live and die with every Hurricane game, losses tend to affect you tremendously and for long periods of time. As you grow older and gain more perspective on what is really important in life, losses by the Hurricanes carry less weight in the overall scheme of things.

Back in 2007 when Canespace was first started, blogging was all the rage. It was new, exciting and building and growing the blog meant everything to me. When you invest much of your own money and most of your spare time in anything it becomes a big part of your life and eventually serious business.

Sometimes too serious in fact. I'll admit, there were probably times where I took the blog, and myself, a little too seriously. I worried too much about how many site visits we would get or wondered about how many comments bloggers would post. I banned some bloggers and damaged relationships with others. To me it was a competition, and one I was bound to try to win or die trying.

Yet soon FaceBook, Twitter and other Internet applications would emerge to compete with the blog and it too became less important in my life. So let this be a lesson to all of you Hurricane fans out there:

Football is important, blogging is cool but there is much more to life than that.

In fact, I'd rather be fishing.

Longtime Canespacer SolarCane (seen above) and I recently had a chance to kayak and fish the beautiful and prisitine lake at Uncoi State Park in northeast Georgia. Solar was gracious enough to have me stay at his spacious home in Cleveland, GA for a few days before and after the Clemson game.

And while the game was great and Miami won I would be lying if I told you we had more fun at the game than we did kayaking and fishing.

At Unico State park we spent the entire day on the lake with no other boats in site, managed to catch a few fish and basically relaxed, laughed and shared a great day on the lake.

So when you feel yourself getting all caught up in college football, or wins and losses, and you feel like you are going to break or break something, take a step back from the stadium, the television or the blog and remember that there may be just a few things a little more important, and possibly even more fun, than watching the Miami Hurricanes play football 12 times a year.